Review: Witch King

Witch King by Martha Wells
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm a Martha Wells fan because of the Murderbot series, but she has written fantasy and epic fantasy for decades. (I also have the complete Books of the Raksura collection.) This book is a secondary-world fantasy with some truly excellent worldbuilding. The world is layered and complex, and Wells is expert at doling out only the information needed to understand what is going on at specific points in the story. The background and exposition never bogs down or detracts from the overall tale.

The titular Witch King, the demon Kaiisteron, is abruptly awakened after the death of his current body and needs to find a new one. (Just trying to write a synopsis of this book is difficult, because this world is complicated. It makes me appreciate what the author did all the more.) He takes over a recently deceased body, fights his way free of the watery tomb where he was imprisoned, and is thrust into a world of competing human/demon/Witch factions fighting for control.

There are two storylines here: one in the present of Kai's awakening, and one in the past which reveals the history of many of the primary players. Both storylines are equally compelling and converge in the final chapters. Kai is hardly the typical evil, blustering sort of demon: he is vulnerable and often unsure of himself, especially as he is thrust into new bodies and has to figure out how to use them to help his friends. We see everything through Kai's tight third person point of view, but the supporting characters are well drawn and interesting, especially Bashasa Calis, the driver of the "past" storyline.

This book is a slow, compelling burn, in story, characterization and worldbuilding. It requires a bit of patience in the early chapters, but it is worth it as everything comes together beautifully in the end. This is also a fairly self-contained story, although there are enough dangling threads to warrant a sequel. I hope it gets one, because above all else, the worldbuilding is fantastic.

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Review: Lords of Uncreation

Lords of Uncreation by Adrian Tchaikovsky
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't usually read doorstopper-sized books like this one. But I make exceptions for certain authors, and Adrian Tchaikovsky is at the top of that list.

This is the last book in the Final Architecture series, and is a galaxy-spanning adventure with universe-level stakes. This could easily get muddled down in the twists and turns of its plot and the enormous battle scenes, but the author's firm grasp on his characters and relationships turns this into the Last Desperate Stand of the Plucky Heroes. Except that none of the characters really qualify as "plucky"--Idris Telemmier, the Intermediary genetically and surgically modified to transverse the Throughways through unspace and to protect humanity from the moon-sized, world-destroying Architects, is a profoundly damaged person who nevertheless keeps struggling to do the right thing. The other character spotlighted in this book (and a welcome spotlight it is) is Olli from the salvage ship Vulture God, who ends up anchoring nearly the entire plot. Olli is a sarcastic, stubborn badass, and it is just a delight to see her whaling away against the various enemies she has to fight to save the day.

One thing that impressed me with this book is the author's impeccable sense of pace. There is a lot going on here, between the reveals of what is happening with the Architects, what really lies at the heart of unspace, the various competing factions of humanity and aliens, and the final battle where all the Architects are sent to wipe out humanity. Most of the book is one long chase scene where Olli is trying to keep ahead of the Architects while Idris, down at the heart of unspace, is facing the godlike entities that live there and ferreting out their secrets. The story could easily be overwhelmed by all the pow-pow and bang-bang, but the author expertly slows things down for some nice character moments, then takes off again for some breathtaking battle scenes. In that way both the characters and the reader are given some much-needed breathing room before the next crisis.

In short, this is a damn fine book, and it expertly wraps up the story. Don't let the weight and heft of this book (and indeed, all the books in the trilogy) put you off. (I especially appreciated the "Story So Far" sections at the beginning of books #2 and #3 bringing the reader up to speed.) There is also one faction of humanity who believes they are the only ones worthy to be saved from the Architects, and another that realizes they need variation and diversity to survive. This is not an overwhelming subplot, but it's a welcome bit of ethics (and the former faction gets a suitably nasty end). I loved this book.

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Review: Dual Memory

Dual Memory by Sue Burke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a near-future (within the next few decades, although it's not specified) science fiction thriller. It's far enough along that there are plenty of technologies that do not exist in the present day, mainly artificial intelligence--every device used by humans is smart, from buildings and streets to carts. Yet there is no true sentience among all of these "smart" things, except for one of this story's protagonists: the personal assistant Par Augustus, who develops an obnoxious, manipulative, condescending, sometimes whiny personality all its own.

This book also takes place in something of a post-climate-change future: the setting, the artificial island of Thule, was built in the Arctic Circle using materials scavenged from drowned cities. (We don't see much of the rest of the planet, but I can well imagine what it might look like, and it's not good. But that's not this story.) It opens with an exciting action sequence, as one of our two main protagonists, Antonio Moro, is shown in a small sub firing off missiles, fighting the raiders who are trying to take the island's resources. Antonio is an artist who had been working on a recycling scow until he volunteered for the hired mercenaries Bronzewing to fight the raiders and protect the island. His sub is damaged and he is left on Thule to be taken in by the community there, where he is hired as an in-house artist for a wealthy couple. Almost by accident the newly sentient Par Augustus falls into his hands, which leads to a convoluted tale of fights against raiders without and greedy entitled capitalists within (trading in extra-terrestrial life forms from the other planets, called Extra-T's, constitutes a big part of the Thule's economy), and Par Augustus rounding up all of Thule's smart buildings and devices to join the fight.

The latter is the genuinely scary and unsettling part of the whole thing, as it is shown that all the smart devices banding together are virtually unstoppable. It's not Skynet, not yet, but Antonio realizes it easily could be. The smart buildings and things are so far adhering to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, but that could change. Antonio has his own ethical conundrums in dealing with Par and protecting the island against the raiders, and eventually meets up with his estranged, long-lost brother who joined them. (Antonio was raised in a climate refugee camp, and his parents were killed by the raiders, so he is very invested in his revenge against them.)

This is a thriller, but it's also an examination of the ethics of artificial intelligence, the drawbacks of capitalism, and the importance of art to the human condition. It's pretty interesting as both.



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Review: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 200, May 2023

Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 200, May 2023 by Neil Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Last month's issue of Clarkesworld was so-so, but this one is stellar. There are five stories here that I would rate as among the best I've read this year, and even the other three, though a cut below, are thought-provoking.

The standouts:

"Better Living Through Algorithms," Naomi Kritzer

Kritzer tends to use AI as a character in her stories; two of her books, Catfishing on CatNet and Chaos on CatNet, feature an artificial intelligence front and center. This story delves into an app, Abelique, that purports to be "for better living." And it seems to do just that--for a while, until its users start to get suspicious of it. It puts a bit of a twist on the author's standard formula, emphasizing the power of human connection.

"Through the Roof of the World," Harry Turtledove

This story is one of two hard-SF stories in the issue (depending on your definition of hard SF, I suppose) about a race of intelligent blind nautilus-like creatures in the oceans of Europa, and what they do when an Earth probe drills through the nine-mile-thick layer of ice to discover a thriving ecosystem. I thought it had a rather abrupt ending, but it just shows the skill of the author in that you want the story to continue.

"Action At a Distance," An Hao, translated by Andy Dudak

This story, originally published in the Chinese magazine Science Fiction World last year, is the second hard-SF story in the issue. It's dense and complex, and will probably take more than one reading (at least it did me) to understand the concepts about consciousness and matter discussed. Some Chinese SF I've read suffers from having thin cardboardy characters, but this story has much better characterization.

"The Fall," Jordan Chase-Young

This is an SF horror story, featuring a genetically engineered forest and creatures on the moon and what happens when a photographer discovers a discarded doll from the Prefall inhabitants.

"To Sail Beyond the Botnet," Suzanne Palmer

This is the latest in a delightful series of stories featuring Bot 9, a small repair bot who has a habit of improvising its way out of all sorts of problems and saving its ship and crew along the way. This novella introduces a fascinating alien race and shakes up Bot 9's world, laying the foundation for more interesting adventures going forward. Also note the title, a takeoff of a Robert A. Heinlein novel.

The second tier of this month's stories didn't quite hit the mark for me as much as the ones above, but they were still worth reading.

"LOL, Said the Scorpion," Rich Larson

Remember the fable of the scorpion and the frog? The scorpion begs the frog to swim him across the river, promising he won't sting. Of course, the scorpion stings the frog, and when the frog asks him why, the scorpion replies, "You knew what I was when you took me aboard." This is an updated cyberpunk version of that fable, with a "holiday suit" that takes protecting its wearer to extreme lengths.

"Sensation and Sensibility," Parker Raglund

This is a kind of talky slice-of-life tale, featuring androids instead of humans. The androids are discussing human senses and emotions, hence the title.

"The Giants Among Us," Megan Chee

This starts out as a sort of science fiction fable, with sleeping giants on a planet that the smaller inhabitants live on (or inside, in the case of one giant's corpse). But then it turns into unexpected themes of exploration, harmony, and hatred of the Other that turns into understanding and friendship. For such a short story, it packs a lot of punch.

There's also an interesting non-fiction article, "Horror and Science Fiction: Genre's Evil Twins", by Carrie Sessarego, that discusses how the two genres can entwine and create something quite potent.

Altogether, this is an excellent issue of Clarkesworld. Now to step momentarily onto my soapbox: due to Amazon's fuckery and cancellation of Kindle subscriptions, genre magazines are shortly going to be in a world of hurt. Please consider subscribing to this excellent magazine. I have subscribed to the print edition for years and it is well worth it. Go here to subscribe.



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Review: Fourth Wing

Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this back to back with another dragon fantasy ( To Shape a Dragon's Breath ), and it was instructive to compare the two. Dragon's Breath was written by an Indigenous author, and her focus was on the intricate and fascinating alternate history she created, where North America was settled, not by the British, but by Norse and Dales colonizers who also conquered much of Europe. She dealt with the effects of colonization and the attempted erasure of Native cultures, and her dragons, while quite interesting in their own right, were almost an afterthought to the larger themes. The protagonist's dragon reminded me a bit of an overgrown, bouncy Golden Retriever puppy (albeit a puppy with a dangerous chemical breath that can literally transmute matter).

The dragons here are nothing like that. They harken back to the classical fire-breathing monsters, with a bit of Anne McCaffrey's Pern thrown in--they are intelligent and telepathic, bonding mentally and emotionally with their riders. The larger world is also a secondary fantasy world, not Earth (although the author's habit of using our months and days for dates was a little disconcerting). The country of Navarre and its dragons have been at war with Poromiel and its gryphons for hundreds of years, and the pinnacle of achievement for many young people is to be admitted to the Basgiath War College, where--if they live long enough (and the student death rate is alarmingly high, so much so that it seems to defeat the college's stated purpose)--they may get to bond with a dragon and fight for their country.

The protagonist is Violet Sorrengail, youngest daughter of General Sorrengail, and she is not supposed to be at Basgiath. She studied all her life to be a scribe, but after her father's death the general ordered her into conscription at Basgiath War College. This book is the story of Violet's fight to survive at the college (not only was she not prepared or trained to attend, she has a connective tissue disorder that makes her physically fragile), her bonding with not one but two dragons, her discovering her hidden power, and her falling in love with her greatest enemy--Xaden Riorson, son of the leader of the Tyrrendor Rebellion.

This book is fairly brutal--as I said, the cadets drop like flies through the narrative. It's written as a first person present tense narrative, as many young adult books are nowadays, but this book, with its explicit sex scenes, is definitely not YA. (And they advance both plot and character, as the best sex scenes should.) The only quibble I have with it is the character of Xaden, who is a rather typical asshole romantic hero who falls for the protagonist at first sight and doesn't say a damn thing to her about his true feelings until the end of the book. Granted, he does have complicated reasons for keeping his silence (the fact that she's the daughter of the woman who executed his father is a big one), but this is a trope that needs to be discarded. Otherwise, the characters--including the dragons, especially the grumpy Tairn--are well-rounded and interesting. Plot-wise, there is a deepening mystery about the history of Navarre and Poromiel and the true enemy which emerges about three-fourths of the way through the story. The aerial fight scenes are well-paced and pulse-pounding, and the final reveal is obviously setting things up for the next book. Which means that the overarching story is not solved in this book at all, so be aware.

We see nearly all of this through Violet's eyes, and she is a fine protagonist--intelligent and resourceful, fierce and loyal and kind. She alone makes this book eminently readable, although there is a lot more to recommend it. Looking forward to the next.

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Review: To Shape a Dragon's Breath

To Shape a Dragon's Breath by Moniquill Blackgoose
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I first started reading this, I thought it would end up similar to Naomi Novik's Temeraire series. That is basically "alternate history Napoleon era British/France wars with dragons." The further I got into this book, however, the more I realized that this alternate history and world is better thought out and detailed. Most importantly, the worldview of this book--it is written from the viewpoint of the colonized instead of the colonizer--turns this alternate history on its head, and imparts some important lessons in racism, discrimination and white supremacy that are incredibly germane to our society today.

But that always has been the result of the best fantasy and science fiction: the fictional worlds we are reading about, no matter how well constructed they are, reflect our own society back to us. In this case, the author, an Indigenous person and enrolled member of the Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe, doesn't have many good things to say about the white people in her society--or ours.

This alternate 1842 takes place in an America never settled by the Pilgrims, French or British, and where the Revolutionary War never took place. Instead, the Norse, Danes and Swedes conquered much of Europe and colonized North America, in the bloody Viking way:

It was in that manner that folk of Norsland, Swedeland and Daneland took possession of many of the southlands of the old world: Finnland and western Russland, Anglesland and Frankland, Tyskland and Polland. All were gained through bloody and glorious conquest.

With this, the influence of Christianity on the American colonies is greatly reduced: the Christian religion gets scarcely a mention at all, as the only gods talked about are Norse. The colonizers are called "Anglish," but that's only because of the language spoken, I think, not because they're from Britain. Unfortunately, this doesn't disabuse them of their conviction that their way of life is superior nor dissuade them from their need to "civilize" the North American "savages":

"All reputable scholars are in agreement about the inherent nature of the species of humanity natural to the shores of the new world. They wholly lack ambition and the desire for personal or social betterment. They are very like bees or wasps: content in their small industries if left undisturbed, but violently resentful to any interference, even that which directly benefits them. They are naturally short-tempered, violent, stubborn, and vengeful--ruled in physical and mental capacities by an excess of bile. They lack the natural industry, intelligence, and desire for improvement that the gods in their wisdom have deigned to impart upon peoples of the white northlands. It is only right and just that the enlightened and advanced species of mankind should supplant those that are backward and primitive."

(It's amazing how the English--or in this case, the Anglish--can mask such vile concepts with such pretty mannered phrases.)

Into this North America on the verge of a steampunk-ish alternate industrial revolution, the final divergence from our world is introduced: the existence of dragons. In the case of our protagonist Anequs, it is a Nampeshiwe, an Indigenous breed with feathers and antlers that lays an egg on Slipstone Island and flies away, leaving fifteen-year-old Anequs to discover it and bring it back to her island of Masquapaug. The egg hatches and the dragonet, Kasaqua, bonds with Anequs, and changes the trajectory of her life forever. Because to the colonizing Anglish, dragons have to be registered and closely monitored, and the fact that Anequs now has an unbreakable bond with one requires her traveling to the mainland and enrolling in a dragon academy: Kuiper's Academy of Natural Philosophy and Skiltakraft (the author's terms for science and magic respectively). There Anequs must learn to manage Kasaqua's chemical, transmuting dragon fire, or the young dragon will be put to death (she may be anyway, as many Anglish don't believe a "nackie"--the Anglish slur term for Indigenous peoples, equivalent to our N-word--should possess a dragon).

This book details the culture clash of nackie and Anglish, and Anequs's attempts to navigate the impossible situation she finds herself in. Anequs is a marvelous character, fierce and loyal, kind and stubborn, determined not to lose herself and her culture to the Anglish. She knows she has a delicate and narrow tightrope to walk, but she means to learn how to shape Kasaqua's breath and return to her people. The friends she makes along the way include Theod Knecht, a young Indigenous man from a neighboring island who survived an Anglish massacre after coal was discovered on his island and the inhabitants resisted the Anglish taking their lands from them, and who was taught to hate his own people, which Anequs helps him to unlearn; Marta, a fellow student at Kuiper Academy who embodies and believes in the ridiculousness of the Anglish "polite society"; Sander Jensen, another student who is autistic and bonds with Anequs over "penniks", this world's dime novels; and Liberty, a young Black woman indentured at the Acadamy, who Anequs becomes romantically interested in.

(This book also deftly avoids the dreaded cliche YA love triangle. Anequs is unashamedly bisexual, and her people are open and accepting of both LBGT individuals and polyamory. There is no "choosing" here between Liberty and Theod, who Anequs is also interested in. Indeed, by book's end, Anequs states she intends to court both of them, and possibly marry them as well.)

As you can see, there is a lot going on here, which is why the book is over 500 pages. And I haven't even mentioned the steampunk-ish aspects, and the magic system, which is based more on chemistry: a dragon's breath can literally change a substance into another substance, and "skiltakraft" is built on the idea of "skiltas," magical sigils that give that breath a direction and a mandate as to what is changed and how that change is accomplished. This is tied into Anequs' people and their history and dances in an ingenious way which ends up being a major turning point of the book.

This is just a marvelous story all the way around, and I loved every bit of it. It is also a book that only an Indigenous author could have written, which is why it is so very important that these writers are given a chance to publish their unique viewpoints. Please, pick this up so we can get more wonderful stories like these.

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Review: The Endless Song

The Endless Song by Joshua Phillip Johnson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book, the second in a duology, solves all the mysteries and leftover plot threads of the first book, The Forever Sea . We find out what happens to all the characters, and the delicate ecology of the Forever Sea and the world is explained.

This ended up being as good as the first book, but it took a little time to get there. The reason for this is unlike the first book, with its tight focus on the hearthkeeper Kindred Greyreach, there are two viewpoint characters and two entwined storylines. They do end up coming together in the end, making sense not only of this book but the first and the series as a whole. However, it felt a little bit of a drag to get through Flitch's chapters in the beginning, as I wanted to be down under the Sea with Kindred. You might feel that way too, but stick with it. I promise Flitch's chapters will make sense and they will draw you into his story.

Both Flitch and Kindred have some impressive character work in this book. The theme of Flitch's storyline is his family growing away from him and leaving him behind:

First Idyll and now the baron--Flitch looked around at his family and wondered how many other lives they were leading, how many other friends and family they were finding and founding, how many paths they walked without him. They were like Gwyn's plants, and while he had been mistaking flowers for the plant, their roots had been growing deeper and further away from him, their stalks reaching away, budding and flowering elsewhere.

(As befits a world with a green grass Sea instead of a liquid water one, most of the phrases and metaphors of the culture are plant-based. This is another fine detail of the worldbuilding.)

Kindred, on the other hand, has to confront her goal of finding her grandmother the Marchess, a former pirate captain who stepped off her boat and dove to the bottom of the Sea. The Marchess raised Kindred and taught her everything she knows about sailing the Sea and tending the hearthfire. Kindred has to confront the fact that her grandmother is doing some very bad things, even if they are for an ostensibly good purpose. She has to break with her grandmother and stop her to save the people above, and this dovetails with Flitch's story. Both their stories, while wrapped up well, are a bit heartbreaking and bittersweet.

This is an immersive world with unique worldbuilding and well-drawn characters. I don't often buy hardbacks these days, but I bought both these books.





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Review: Danger and Other Unknown Risks

Danger and Other Unknown Risks by Ryan North
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a post-apocalyptic alternate history where the flipover from December 31, 1999 to January 1 2000, instead of melting down all computers then in existence, reintroduced magic to the world. This caused the collapse of civilization and the breakdown of the planet to many different realms where the laws of physics are different and magic works.

Twenty years later, our protagonist Marguerite de Pruitt is stealing magical totems from the different realms and bringing them back to her uncle Bernard. Her uncle claims these items will be able to reverse the magical breakdown. She is accompanied by her talking dog, a chow named Daisy, and this thick graphic novel recounts their adventures and the discovery Marguerite makes about her uncle's true motivations.

This was okay, but I didn't think it was outstanding. In particular, Bernard didn't make much of a villain--he wasn't a villain so much as a selfish jackass (and a racist selfish jackass at that, with all his prattling about the loss of Western civilization) who wanted to return the world to what it was instead of accepting that it had changed. His efforts put Marguerite, Daisy and their friend Jacin into an endless time travel loop that they managed to break out of at the end. The book ends with Bernard defeated and the three friends now free to travel their new world (and in Marguerite's case, one day returning to the cute farmer boy she met earlier). The art is bright and a bit old-fashioned with clearly defined panels of varying sizes according to the flow of the story. It was pleasant enough, but I've read better.

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Review: The Salt Grows Heavy

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The subgenre of fairy tale retellings/sequels is neither common nor easy to do. You have to be familiar with the previous stories and their various incarnations throughout history, and whether the original tellings were bloodier than the current ones, which is often the case. Finally, the author has to know if (as is also often the case) the original stories have been Disney-fied beyond recognition.

All of which is to say that this novella, a sequel to The Little Mermaid, is a continuation of that story that is beautifully written--and definitely drawing from the older, darker, bloodier tradition--with prose keen enough to make just about any writer sigh with envy. Just picking a random page and paragraph from the book:

A lie if there ever was one. But even if I had a voice with which to correct my companion, I would have said nothing. I bite down on my smile instead, straightening, aware of how I must look: transparent hair, translucent skin, lips red as arteries. Iridescent eyes, stained-glass oceans, so large that they are nearly alien, their breadth magnified by thick, sweeping lashes. With every hour that passes, every morsel of flesh to worm down my throat, I become closer to what I was, what I am: an inhuman thing wrenched from the maw of the sea.

This gorgeous prose extends throughout the entire book, and is worth reading slowly just to savor. But this being the aftermath of a Little Mermaid tale that does not end at all happily for the prince (the original short story from which this apparently sprang is reprinted at the end of the book, and The Salt Grows Heavy begins immediately afterward), the mermaid and her companion, the equally nameless Plague Doctor from the original story, leave her husband's ravaged kingdom to have an adventure of their own. This is a coming-of-age story, of sorts; an adventure, of sorts; and a love story, of sorts. It is also extremely gory, with loving details of skin, blood, intestines, viscera and such, so if you have an aversion to that, you absolutely should not read this. The lovely writing and well-drawn characters were worth it to me. It also doesn't outstay its welcome: the novella length was just right for this tale. This is one of the best things I have read so far this year.

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Review: Lone Women

Lone Women by Victor LaValle
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is kind of an odd book, a genre mashup of westerns, fantasy, and horror. I thought it started out promisingly, with a tight third person focus on the protagonist: one Adelaide Henry, a Black woman who flees California after the mysterious deaths of her parents. Adelaide is trying to make it to Big Sandy, Montana, where she has applied to homestead 320 acres. (According to the author's afterword, this is a factual thing which was available in Montana in the time period of this book--1915--and open to Black people and single women.) The opening chapters establish the setting, the protagonist, and most importantly the mystery: Adelaide is carting an extremely heavy steamer trunk across the country with her, a trunk which must never be opened....or people will die.

All well and good, and the mystery is in fact the best thing about this book with its slow, creepy unfolding--until about halfway through when the trunk bursts open and we get a glimpse of what is inside. (The descriptions of the occupant are deliberately vague--I thought at first it was a vampire, but it turns out to be something entirely different at the end.) This complicates matters for Adelaide and sets up the final showdown between her, the monster, and the townspeople.

Unfortunately, after that the focus widens, and several other point of view characters are brought in. Some of them, frankly, I didn't care for too much. I wanted to go back to Adelaide. This made the middle of the story a bit of a muddle, until the rather bloody climax. I suppose the purpose of this was to show more of the townspeople and their entitlement and hubris, but if so, that idea wasn't very well executed. The ending was better, as Adelaide and the survivors settle into another town all their own and seem to be thriving.

So there was a lot to like about this book, but it wasn't tightly focused enough for this reader. It's certainly an interesting period of history, however, and it was worth exploring.

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